Environmentalists fight back, addressing important questions in the way the DMCA is used

The battlefield for the Digital Millenium Copyright Act just gained a new,
unlikely set of occupants: environmentalists at SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect
and Kindness) and the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.

According to a lawsuit filed
(PDF) by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of SHARK, the PRCA
“abused” the Digital Millenium Copyright Act by filing over a dozen takedown
notices when the environmentalist group posted videos of animal abuse on
YouTube.

The PRCA oversees a large number of rodeo events in the United States. SHARK
focuses primarily on animal cruelty in rodeos and bullfighting.

Initially, YouTube complied with the PRCA’s requests, taking down SHARK’s
YouTube account and the videos – posted between December 2006 and December 2007
– around the middle of December 2007. The outage lasted for a little more than
a week; on Christmas Day 2007, YouTube restored SHARK’s videos and account a
series of counter-notifications sent by SHARK’s lawyers.

In its lawsuit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation alleges that the PRCA
“misused” the DMCA’s copyright takedown facilities, by falsely asserting
copyright over videos it didn’t own.

“Live rodeo events are not copyrightable and that the PRCA’s copyright claim
was baseless,” reads the complaint.

“The PRCA may not like it when our clients raise tough questions about how
animals are treated at rodeos, “ said EFF Attorney Corynne McSherry in a press
release issued Monday. “This copyright claim is … made simply to block the
public from seeing SHARK's controversial videos. The PRCA can't be permitted to
silence its critics through a misuse of the law.”

“We can't let the PRCA continue to interfere with SHARK's free speech
rights,” said SHARK investigator Michael Kobliska. “It's simply not right for
us to waste our time and money dealing with these baseless DMCA takedowns that
block our message from getting out to the public.”

The lawsuit seeks to prevent the PRCA from filing future copyright
complaints or lawsuits against SHARK.

While a seemingly routine quibble between environmentalists and animal
handlers may at first glance seem unimportant in the larger arena of digital
rights, SHARK’s lawsuit can have larger ramifications. Copyright law enforces
penalties for falsely misrepresenting ownership in a takedown request, and the
DMCA’s takedown provisions have
a history of misuse.

More importantly, rules set in the DMCA are beginning to establish, indirectly,
an international precedent. Sweeping Canadian copyright legislation, dubbed the
“Canadian DMCA” by its backers, seeks to install “draconian” copyright rules
and penalties and is styled in a similar fashion to the American law by the
same name. Techdirt reports that the Canadian bill nearly
died in late 2007 due to a public outcry, but was recently reinstated on a
“fast track” as its backers try to get the bill approved as soon as possible.

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I know people are not going to like this, but let me say this. They are animals for all intents and purposes they exist for our amusement. While I am not necessarily for mistreating animals just because you can, and I think that people who do have some mental issues. But they are just animals and people who get overreacted to Animals mistreatment should be more worried about human rights abuses then Animal abuses.

Once Poverty, starvation, and human rights, and all other human problems have been taken care of that when we should worry about needless rodeo's are.

Wow, does that mean you exist for our amusement too? People that go out an abuse animals, it says alot about their mentality. If you're going to eat the cow or deer or whatever you're killing that's one thing, but killing just cause you can says alot about how much of an animal you are yourself. I don't think I need to say anything about people that abuse animals after saying that.

Um.... I have killed a total of 3 animals my whole life and two of them were mice, and none of them senseless, they had there reasoning. I have never gone dog fighting, cock, running with the bulls, never attempted to go hunting, never watched a rodeo, and I actively try dodging animals in the road (number 3). I take no Amusement from killing Animals or having someone else kill animals (well maybe some times if its funny). That said, they are animals, and like you said so are we, we are a more advanced animals. While its socially acceptable for cats, and Orcas to play with their prey, it generally isn't acceptable here. Knowing that, they are not humans and whether its accepted by you or not it isn't really wrong, depraved yes, wrong no.

I can't agree that they exist for our amusement. More like, we are the dominant species and as we evolved, found it very beneficial, sometimes even necessary to use them for food and clothing, but not nearly so much today.

I can't even imagine the number of animals I've killed. Sure, mice and other rodents and such, plus I have hunted in the past, I have property that took away (animal) habitats when the land was cleared, I buy meat at a store, I put weedkiller on my lawn that makes birds act funny (though over the counter legal formula type).

Our existance causes other animals to die, that's just the way it is when you're higher up on the food or evolutionary chain. I don't take amusement from it, except one time I was young, playing pretend-Rambo I suppose and stuck my knife through a frog's head where it sat, but I was going to kill and eat it anyway and that is the quickest way to kill one. The amusement was in play-acting, not in prolonging animal suffering. A naturalist would probably have preferred I had packed a turkey sandwich but it was a camping trip and I don't see the difference in raising a bird to kill on a poultry farm or eating a frog I killed myself, quickly.

To me the real difference is availability and choice. If that frog were sitting next to a bowl of vegitarian chili, I'd probably pick up my spoon instead of killing the frog. I wouldn't choose to cut off it's leg and leave it lying there squirming, nor employ animals in cruel ways like a rodeo, though if it were another time and place I might put a yoke on an ox and till a field with it.

You missed the entire point of his argument. He never condoned abuse, he just stated there are more important issues. Is he wrong. Is it more important to ban that next rodeo or feed a child, give medical care to someone in need or save the whale. If a car hits a dog do you help the person or call the vet for the dog. These choices tells a lot about a persons mentality. If you value human life over animals doesn't mean they are not valued. Just one is more important than the other. If you say they are equal or animal is greater. (I don't have the answer for you if this is the case because it would be inconceivable for a rational person to understand.)